Bluetooth and internet access How good is it?

C

chiliiiii

New member
I am looking to upgrade my (Very) old palm. I would like to have wireless browsing capability, and have Wi-Fi at home. However PDAs with Wi-Fi are expensive, and I am wondering if a bluetooth PDA would do the trick just as well for me (I probably don't need to have the wireless capability on the road). I was wondering what people thought of it, and is it any good, or maybe too slow? Any feedback would be appreciated. I presume all I would need (apart from a bluetooth PDA of course) is a bluetooth dongle for my PC?

Aidan.
 
Bluetooth will work fine if you have Bluetooth on your PC. You'll need an additional program like Softick PPP for your Palm to establish a connection to your broadband service on your PC. The only issue is the relatively limited range of Bluetooth compared to WiFi. With Bluetooth, about 20 to 40 feet is normally the maximum range compared to WiFi, which can be several hundred yards depending on how the router is set up and the type of antenna used.
 
Jim,

You mentioned that an additional program is needed to connect with Bluetooth. If the PDA has bluetooth capabilities, why would you need a third party software? Doesn't Palm provide that software?
I'm looking to buy a Tungsten T5 through Palm.com, and they have a deal that includes a free Wi-Fi card with purchase. Will I need a third party software to establish connection with Wi-Fi?

Ric
 
Ric,
No, you wouldn't need anything additional to use WiFi since it directly connects the browser to the web. Bluetooth isn't actually meant to be used to connect to the web but to other devices, like phones or PC's. You need the additional software with Bluetooth to be able to connect to the broadband connection on the PC.
 
I have good results with my Tungsten T and a Bluetooth phone - works pretty well with only the ccasional glitch, usually (I think) due to variable signal strenght.

Rgrds

Peter
PS Orange SPV C500 in the UK
 
You do not need any additional software on the Palm but you will need software on your PC to allow your Bluetooth dongle to share the PC's network connection. Several versions of MS-Windows include software called Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which will do the job, otherwise there are third-party connection sharing programs you can use.

You can find instructions on how to set it all up in several places on the Web, try this one: http://www.whizoo.com/bt_setup/ or try Googling on a suitable string such as "palm bluetooth internet access". In this house we have a T3 and a Zodiac 2 both happily downloading email via Bluetooth.

Good luck!
Bryan
 
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